PERHAPS it was the giraffes, or the holy frankincense, or the stories of cornflower sapphires and yellow topaz tumbling down mountains with the spring rains. Or perhaps it was the stories, preserved in puppet shows and operas, of Chinese success in outwitting foreigners in trade negotiations, to the extent of inventing a 'porcelain tree' from which blue-and-white vases were plucked. But whatever the reason, seven voyages to India, Indonesia, Arabia and even Africa by a Muslim eunuch admiral 600 years ago - and 50 years or so before Vasco da Gama even dipped his toddler toes in the sea - struck a chord in the Chinese romantic imagination that has resonances even today.
It paved the way for the millions of Chinese whose families have lived abroad ever since, even in direct disobedience of imperial (and more recently, communist) decrees.
Before Admiral Zheng He - or Cheng Ho - few Chinese sea-traders had visited distant places and even fewer had settled. But after Zheng, thousands of Chinese people wanted to try their luck overseas, and over the generations many did - whether for gold or spice, piracy or education, stability or adventure.
As Lynn Pan observed, in her book on the diaspora, Sons Of The Yellow Emperor, 'what Cheng Ho did was to make so deep an impression on the imagination of the Chinese settled in Southeast Asia that he has been deified there, and the cult . . . survives to this day. At home, in popular ballads and folk songs, the romance of these journeys took on a fabulous quality; and the exotic countries . . . appeared as an alluring eldorado in the miraculous tales told to children'.
What was the fleet like? Imagine four great wooden vessels, covered with sails, and with dragon eyes painted on its prow, and 300 other ships sailing into Hong Kong harbour.
Even today it would be daunting - all those centuries ago, the sight of the emissaries of the dragon throne quickly turned into legend.